Creative forces launching Boston’s rental apartment building boom are not going for the fancy stuff on outside.
Take the new INK BLOCK and TROY apartment buildings adjacent to the I-93 South Expressway,
These are clean block style buildings painted in earth colors with square, rectangular sides and corners. The only curves you see are in the minimalist flower bed layout along the entrance walkway.
They are nice places, a bit small and very square.
If it were not for the pleasant view of downtown and the sunset skies, the area would be a design dessert where there’s not much to like about living there except it’s proximity to the low cost fish restaurant take out inside Whole Foods and Chinatown, which is a 5 minute walk across the bridge.
These city-approved 427 residential units to be constructed follow this block building architectural style. It is a proven, build quick and to the budget formula but there is nothing cheap about renting these units. You are going to pay a high rent. There are affordable rental units set aside beginning at $1,300 per month, but the majority of you need to be taking home $80,000+ incomes to live well at INK BLOCK and TROY Apartments.
Enter Whole Foods into the INK BLOCK area. Their designers were thinking style, form and function. The sense you get from the Supermarket is an airy and healthy vibe, a physically different mood than what it feels like walking into the lobby of the INK BLOC apartments.
If the builders kept it conservative so as to remind us that this industrial space was once home to the Boston Herald Newspaper then forget that. We don’t need to be reminded of it. There are not enough green plants over there.
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